One of Nigeria’s most senior lawmakers wants to change the rules of the game — and he wants to do it before the ink dries on the 2027 election results.
Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele has announced plans to sponsor a bill in the 11th Senate that would replace the current two four-year terms for presidents and governors with a single, non-renewable six-year tenure — effective after the 2027 general elections.
He made the disclosure during an interview with reporters in Abuja on Tuesday, laying out his reasoning with the kind of candour that is rarely heard from sitting lawmakers about the political system they operate within.
The argument, stripped to its core, is straightforward: Nigerian presidents and governors spend too much of their first term thinking about their second one — and the country pays the price.
”Put In Your Best From Day One”
Bamidele did not dress the problem up.
Under the current arrangement, he argued, an elected leader who takes office in May of one year is already mentally calculating their re-election by the middle of the following year. That leaves roughly 18 months of a four-year term consumed not by governance, but by political survival.
”So that you don’t even have to worry about wasting almost one and a half years of your first term thinking and struggling and looking forward to how you’ll be re-elected,” he said.
”If you know you are there for six years, only one tenure, you put in your best from day one. You know this is the only chance that you have.”
It is a compelling argument on paper. A leader with no re-election to chase has nothing to lose by making hard, unpopular decisions. No constituency to manage. No political machine to fund. Just one window — six years — to build something that lasts.
A Proposal That Will Not Pass Without a Fight
Bamidele was careful to frame this as his personal conviction, not a Senate consensus.
”That’s my opinion. It doesn’t mean everybody will agree with me. But it also does not mean that I am prevented from doing that because that has not been the law,” he said.
And that is precisely the point — because if this bill is to become reality, it will require far more than one lawmaker’s conviction. A single-term presidency proposal touches the 1999 Constitution directly, meaning it would need the support of two-thirds of the National Assembly and two-thirds of the 36 state Houses of Assembly to pass into law.
That is an enormous bar — and history shows that constitutional amendments in Nigeria rarely sail through quietly. Any sitting president would likely view such a bill as a direct challenge to political power structures, and powerful political interests across parties benefit from the current system as it stands.
The Bigger Picture — Salaries, Transparency, and Reform
The single-term proposal was not the only significant thing Bamidele said on Tuesday.
According to ThisDay, the Senate Leader also issued a challenge to the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) — the body responsible for setting the pay of public officeholders — demanding that it publicly publish the full salaries, allowances and benefits of every category of public official in Nigeria, including senators, members of the House of Representatives, ministers, commissioners and state legislators.
”All allowances received by parliamentarians at both the federal and state levels should be published fully and publicly,” he said. “Once that is done, many of the misconceptions surrounding legislative remuneration will disappear.”
It is a rare call for transparency from within the legislature itself — and one that, if acted upon, could reshape the public conversation about what Nigerian lawmakers actually earn.
Has This Been Tried Before?
This is not the first time a single-term proposal has circulated in Nigeria’s political space. The idea has been debated — and shot down — multiple times over the decades, often resurfacing around election cycles before quietly fading away.
President Goodluck Jonathan notably proposed a single six-year term during his administration, a suggestion that was met with widespread suspicion at the time, given the political timing. Critics then, as now, worry that a single long term without re-election accountability could breed unchecked executive power rather than focused governance.
Supporters counter that the current system is worse — producing leaders who campaign with public resources and treat their first term as a rehearsal.
What Nigerians Are Really Asking
The deeper question this proposal raises is one that goes beyond term limits: what makes Nigerian leaders accountable?
If re-election is removed as a check on behaviour, what replaces it? A free press? A functioning judiciary? An active legislature? Strong civil society? These institutions exist in Nigeria — but their consistent ability to hold power to account remains, to put it charitably, a work in progress.
Bamidele’s proposal is worth debating seriously. The 11th Senate — which will be inaugurated after the 2027 elections — will be the arena where that debate begins.
Whether it ends in a constitutional amendment or another shelved reform is a question Nigeria has answered before.
For now, the Senate Leader has put it back on the table.
- Punchng